The great British jazz singer Norma Winstone once again casts her net wide for source material for this third ECM album with Italian pianist Glauco Venier and German clarinetist / saxophonist Klaus Gesing. Alongside new pieces by Winstone/Gesing and by Venier, the trio covers tunes by singer-songwriters Nick Drake, Fred Neil and Tom Waits. They take a fresh approach to Madonna’s “Live To Tell”, and to Dave Grusin’s “It Might Be You”, as well as Ralph Towner’s “A Breath Away” (now with lyrics by Norma) and “Bein’ Green”, a children’s song elevated to jazz standard status by Sinatra, Stan Kenton, Ray Charles and many more. “As Winstone moves ever farther from the Great American Songbook,” All About Jazz observed, “it's certain that, with band mates as sympathetic as Gesing and Venier, there's precious little she can't do”.

Rusconi are a young and adventurous jazz band; who could be a better collaborative partner than old and adventurous jazz man Fred Frith? The former Henry Cow man slots his jagged guitar right into the Rusconi sound.

Norma Ann Winstone is a British jazz singer and lyricist. In a career spanning over forty years she is best known for her wordless improvisations. Norma Winstone's voice melds seamlessly with the bass clarinet and soprano sax of Klaus Gesing and the piano of Glauco Venier. Alongside their own pieces, they play songs from Mexico's Armando Manzanero to Armenia's Komitas, to Wayne Shorter.